John Franzese

John "Sonny" Franzese, Sr. (6 February 1917-) was the underboss of the Colombo crime family and the father of Michael Franzese. Franzese became known as the oldest mobster in history, surpassing the age of 100 and becoming the only centenarian in federal custody.

Biography
John Franzese was born in Naples, Italy on 6 February 1917, and his family moved to New York City in the United States before he was even a year old. He joined the Colombo crime family during the late 1930s, and he was discharged from the US Army during World War II for his homicidal tendencies. By the 1960s, he was the fastest growing and most prominent shylock in the Greater New York area, and he took over nightclubs with his enterprise. Franzese was involved with racketeering, fraud, and loansharking, and he was a regular at the Copacabana, where he met with stars like Frank Sinatra on a regular basis. Franzese was "made" in 1949, was given his own crew during the 1950s, and was an underboss by 1964. In March 1967, he was convicted of masterminding several bank robberies, and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 1970. In 1978, he was released on parole, but he was re-arrested in 1982 for a parole violation. In 1984, he was again released on parole. In 1986, after Carmine Persico was sentenced to life in prison, Franzese created a three-man ruling panel to oversee the Colombo family. In 2011, Franzese was sentenced to eight years in prison for extorting two Manhattan strip clubs, running a loanshark operation, and extorting a Long Island pizzeria. Franzese became known as the oldest mobster in history, reaching the age of 100.